Deputy fired for not reporting jail beating death
Newly released records show he was told by other guards about the killing
SAN JOSE » A Santa Clara County correctional deputy was fired in 2016 for failing to report that a colleague had told him about the beating death of a mentally ill jail inmate and falsely claiming that he didn’t hear the fatal attack, records released late Friday show.
Former jail deputy Pablo Tempra’s firing was not made public until the release of documents under the state’s new police transparency law, SB 1421.
“You violated department policies by failing to submit a report or notify your supervisor” about the killing of Michael Tyree on Aug. 26, 2015, Assistant Sheriff Ken Binder wrote in a letter to Tempra.
Three former deputies, Jereh Lubrin, Matthew Farris and Rafael Rodriguez, were sentenced last year to 15 years to life in state prison after a jury convicted them of murder for Tyree’s death.
The records released Friday contend that Lubrin told Tempra about the killing shortly after it happened. But Tempra did not admit that for more than two months, Binder wrote.
Tempra also lied when asked if he heard Tyree and Juan Villa, another mentally ill inmate who reportedly was assaulted before Tyree, yelling when they were attacked. Tempra was assigned to the same housing unit as the three convicted deputies. None reported the use of force on Tyree or Villa, authorities said.
Other staff, as well as several inmates, reported hearing “loud yelling and screaming” during the beating. Investigators used sound tests to show that Tempra would have heard the inmates from where he was stationed during the attack, records show.
“Your actions impeded both the criminal (and) administrative investigation of Tyree’s death,” Binder wrote in Tempra’s termination notice. “Your conduct has cast considerable doubt on your integrity and character.”
Binder added, “You have tarnished your reputation and violated the public trust.”
In all, Tempra was found to have committed seven violations of Sheriff’s Office rules of conduct and policies, including gross misconduct, neglect of duty and making false statements.
Tempra’s termination was based on the same investigation that led to charges against Farris, Lubrin and Rodriguez. The report of the investigation was given to the Sheriff’s Office in January 2016, four months after Tyree died, by the Renne Sloan Holtzman Sakai Public Law Group, which was hired to conduct an external investigation. The law group, which has since dissolved, assigned former San Francisco City Attorney Louise Renne, a firm partner, and former Oakland police Chief Howard Jordan, a firm consultant, to the probe.
In the report, investigators noted that Tempra’s claims that he did not hear Tyree’s beating “lack credibility.”
Tempra could not be reached for comment Friday. The Sheriff’s Office said it would not be offering immediate comment on the records release.
Lubrin, Rodriguez and Farris denied beating Tyree, claiming they found the 31-year-old, who had bipolar disorder, with severe injuries he had inflicted on himself by flinging himself violently around his cell. Tyree suffered a severed liver and spleen and blunt force trauma to his face and skull. The attack occurred while the deputies were searching cells for any extra clothing inmates might have stashed away.
The three former guards were found guilty of second-degree murder in 2017 for killing Tyree, but a jury deadlocked on assault charges involving Villa. Tyree’s family eventually settled a lawsuit against the county for $3.6 million.
The case exposed widespread abuse and neglect in Santa Clara County’s jail system. Text messages, mostly sent by Farris and used as evidence at the trial, referred to inmates being “twisted up,” “sprayed,” “kicked,” “locked down,” “slapped” and “beaten the (expletive) down.” Other evidence presented in court included text exchanges between the deputies boasting about assaulting inmates, and internet searches by Rodriguez shortly after Tyree’s death in which he looked up phrases such as “punched in the stomach questions” and “Can you die if someone punches you in the armpit?”
Tyree’s death is widely regarded as a flashpoint that spurred an array of jail reforms, as well as a federal consent decree, finalized in March, when a federal judge formally settled a class-action suit against the county by the Prison Law Office over conditions at the jail. That litigation preceded the case but was given new momentum and attention in the wake of the scandal.
This story was produced as part of the California Reporting Project, a collaboration of 40 newsrooms across the state to obtain and report on police misconduct and serious use-of-force records unsealed in 2019.